Sometimes you just gotta build a dagger. This may be The Pointiest Object Ever.
I've been making knives for a few years now.
As of 2023 I am up to 65 knives built.
The next few pictures are from a knifemaking class I took in Japan while walking the 88 Temple route in Shikoku. The shop is on the Shimanto River, Japan's last undammed river.
Nobuya-san, the owner. Always happy and encouraging, and a consummate craftsman.
We would start the day warming up by the woodstove.
One of the 4 knives I built there.
Nobuya-san on the power hammer. You show up and immediately start heating steel in the coal-fired forge. No safety lecture, no "class time". Within an hour I was wailing on red hot steel with a 3 ft sledgehammer.
I'm guessing there aren't too many knives with handles made from toy dinosaurs.
Barracuda letter opener.
Branch handle paring knife. I think it is plum wood from the back yard.
Hori-hori garden knife
A french-style chef knife
Burned fir handle
Texas cypress handle from the owner's land.
Inuit trade knife replica.
My first knife, "El Jefe".
That bottom one is a folder.
This is one big badass knife.
Larkin Knives T-shirt. Highly coveted.
Beware the Batchet, Slicer of Fingers.
This. handle is made of stacked 1/2" plywood.
Cleaver for Mark. 2023.